UberNoggin

The folks at Google are smart. They understand the sometimes difficult to imagine way that participatory media can actually create business. Take, for example, their latest campaign: Gmail Behind the Scenes Video. It’s simple. Record a 10 second video of the same envelope passing from one side of the screen to another. That’s it. The magic comes when the videos are all added together. But even this is nothing new.

What’s really new about this? It’s meant to advertise a free service: Gmail. A service which only makes money using sidebar ads, which I have NEVER clicked in the year+ that I’ve been using gmail but that’s beyond the point. Google understands that you can advertise the attitude of a service/product just as well as you can advertise the actual product. They understand that getting current users involved in the process increases their devotion to the product and that having thousands of people shoot 10 second videos is more financially smart that spending $1million on one commercial. Cheaper actually equals better!

I think it goes back to the old toothpaste ad adage. What does a toothpaste ad really sell?

Take this one, for example. It might have info about how the toothpaste can keep your teeth healthy (toothpaste = health) but what it’s really saying is Toothpaste = healthy teeth = beauty and success. It’s that leap from product to perceived impact that is critical to understand. But enough about toothpaste; let’s go back to Gmail.

So what the Gmail Behind the Scenes campaign is really telling us is gmail = fun with smart people. So not only can we use a great email service but we’ll be in the company of smart people (who doesn’t want that, right?) who do fun things (we all want to be fun!). Meanwhile, the campaign itself becomes another Google product because people are excited to submit something and watch what others have added. Oh, and to top it all off, the videos are all hosted on YouTube so Google gets to advertise another company they own at the same time. Brilliant!

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